Writers' Newsletter

Issue #279
June 2026

Some of this month's news for writers from around the web.

Cheltenham Literature Festival sounds alarm over scam emails targeting writers

boringnews.co.uk – Tuesday June 16, 2026

Cheltenham Festivals has warned authors, literary agents and speakers to ignore fraudulent emails and messages that falsely claim to represent the Cheltenham Literature Festival. The urgent alert, published on 5 June, describes a wave of unsolicited communications that invite recipients to take part in the festival programme and, in some cases, ask for money.

[Read the full article]

Cassava Republic Press Is Now Accepting Manuscript Submissions for Literary Fiction and Speculative Fiction

brittlepaper.com – Monday June 8, 2026

Cassava Republic Press has announced its 2026 manuscript submission windows, inviting writers to submit works across fiction and nonfiction categories on a rotating basis throughout the year. The first window, for Literary Fiction and Speculative Fiction, is open now, with a deadline of June 30, 2026, at 23:59 BST. Two further windows follow later in the year.

Cassava Republic wants work in its best possible shape before submission. Writers should send a 500-word summary of the book alongside the first three chapters of the manuscript, submitted as a Word attachment. The file should be named in the following format: date of submission (dd.mm.yy), first name, surname, book title — for example, Cassava Submission: Yinka Allen, To Play With Fire. The author’s name should appear only on the title page and nowhere else in the manuscript.

[Read the full article]

Killer Shorts Horror Writing Competition Open NOW With New Category for Feature Screenplays!

bloody-disgusting.com – Sunday June 7, 2026

The annual genre competition dedicated to finding and launching the next generation of horror writing talent, this year’s Killer Shorts is now officially open for entries!

Founded in 2019, Killer Shorts has established itself as a premier industry launchpad. The competition connects screenwriters and prose authors directly with the executives, managers, and producers who actively greenlight and option dark genre cinema.

But this year’s competition isn’t only about killer horror shorts…

For this brand new season, Killer Shorts is expanding its categories to include feature-length screenplays alongside its traditional short script, one-page script, and short story divisions.

[Read the full article]

A selection of the new listings added to firstwriter.com this month.

New Magazine Listing: Confingo Magazine

firstwriter.com – Monday June 15, 2026

Publishes a twice-yearly print-only magazine featuring new short fiction, poetry and art from around the world. Seeks original, unpublished stories in any style or genre up to 5,000 words, poems up to 50 lines, and artwork suitable for high‑resolution A5 print. May feature excerpts from accepted work online or on social media with full credit. Authors of accepted work receive payment.

[See the full listing]

New Publisher Listing: My Kind of Book

firstwriter.com – Friday June 19, 2026

Publishes sensory stories and picture books designed for children with profound and multiple learning disabilities, with a focus on creating engaging, accessible material supported by ongoing research and the development of innovative formats.

[See the full listing]

New Literary Agent Listing: Marc Gerald

firstwriter.com – Tuesday June 16, 2026

Represents writers, artists, creators and influencers for the book publishing world, developing material from original concept through to completion. Handles general fiction, mystery, suspense, thriller, biography, business, finance, history, religious, mind body spirit, health, travel, lifestyle, cookbooks, sports, African American and science. Places books with major houses and develops projects across platforms. Accepts submissions by email with the first 25–50 pages.

[See the full listing]

Some of this month's articles for writers from around the web.

A Writer's Guide to Rejection Letters

poetry.arizona.edu – Friday June 19, 2026

The reality of submitting poetry to literary journals is that there are so many incredible poets doing it, and editors only have so much room in their magazines. All of us are inevitably going to face rejection in the writing world, and if we’re equipped to hit it head-on, we won’t be beaten down when we get that first “thanks but no thanks” letter. And bracing ourselves for rejection, or reframing it as proof of effort, makes us better writers in the long run.

Magazines typically accept less than 1% of the submissions they receive. In Submittable (as of March 2026), my rate of acceptance versus rejections is 174/1801, making my acceptance rate  about 10%. I find that knowing this motivates me to submit more—for about every 10 pieces I send in, one will probably be accepted.

Editors are looking at thousands of submissions and can’t always provide feedback or respond personally to submissions. You’ll often see editors acknowledge this in a rejection letter. But if you volunteer to work on a literary magazine (which I highly recommend), you’ll quickly come to understand their perspective. I have read for a few magazines and contests, and when I have, I notice how quickly overwhelmed I can become. It doesn't take long for me to engage or disengage with a poem. Patterns begin to appear:

• Careless errors
• Misnaming the editor or reader
• Not following the submission guidelines
• Stylistic or aesthetic differences (readers are subjective with subjective tastes! And that's OK, but this is why magazines tell you to read before you submit; you may quickly realize just how much they vary in aesthetic interests.)

Understanding these patterns can help improve the likelihood of your work not being rejected. 

[Read the full article]

Words, words, words

aeon.co – Thursday June 18, 2026

Strong resistance to AI among writers is understandable. But it obscures what we share with the machines: language itself

Since artificial intelligence went mainstream a few years ago, it has done double duty as a political personality test: tell me what you think about AI, and I’ll tell you who you are. Those worried about climate change focus on energy consumption. Those who denounce late capitalism see it as the ultimate example of corporate monopoly. Those concerned about racism have warned about AI biases. Those studying the effects of colonialism see it as yet another form of exploitation. And those tending toward doom have seen ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Grok as the four riders of the apocalypse.

People in the arts and culture have felt particularly threatened by AI because the technology seems to be coming for the things they cherish the most: the creative use of images, words, and ideas. The latter two, words and ideas, have been in the centre of the storm because generative AI is based on language and because ideas are closely associated with the words in which they are expressed. In response, writers have largely opted for resistance, defending the genuine creativity of humans against the machines. My social media feeds have been flooded with AI-slop gleefully produced and circulated by colleagues hoping to prove that AI can’t be creative. Let’s call this the Creative Resistance.

[Read the full article]

How to Write a Novel in 33 Days

lithub.com – Thursday June 18, 2026

There’s a popular idea, fueled by countless Hollywood movies, of how writing a novel works. It goes something like this. Author is struck by inspiration. Author sits down and types in a frenzied montage, words flowing directly from the ether onto the page. Within a few hours/days/weeks, a book appears.

I used to think this was (charitably) an exaggeration, or (uncharitably) bullshit. My experience of the writing process always involved much more conscious effort, and much more uncertainty. I spent my time stumbling through first drafts, doubling back, second-guessing everything I wrote. I had accepted that even if the pure-inspiration model was real, it wasn’t something I would ever experience.

But then an image came to me: a young woman in the back seat of a car, returning to the burnt-out ruin of the house where she once lived as a member of a cult. Within a few days, the rest of the story coalesced around her: the charismatic leader she was going back to find; the power he had offered her, to control and manipulate what others perceive as reality; and the community she had lost.

[Read the full article]

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